The debate over the United States Constitution in New York in 1787–1788 was an extraordinary combination of great political argument and skilled political practice, and it engaged critical issues that are relevant even today.

The statewide public debate culminated in a county-by-county election of delegates to the New York Ratifying Convention, an election in which there were no property qualifications for voters or delegates and which may be considered among the first truly democratic elections in the modern sense.

This online exhibition features documents, contemporary newspapers and broadsides, portraits and objects illuminating the hard-fought advocacy and courage to compromise that characterized this debate.

Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn is the first exhibition to relate the American, French and Haitian revolutions as a single, global narrative. Spanning decades of enormous political and cultural changes, from the triumph of British imperial power in 1763 to the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815, Revolution! traces how an ideal of popular sovereignty, introduced through the American fight for independence, soon sparked more radical calls for a recognition of universal human rights, and set off attacks on both sides of the Atlantic against hereditary privilege and slavery. It also recounts the famed careers of such revolutionaries as Thomas Paine, Jean-Baptiste Belley and Dominique Toussaint L’Overture.